It was so useful to get this feedback on my posts. It allowed me to build my knowledge around ideas like the nature of resistance, how beauty can work against prejudice and appropriation.
The dialogue of these exchanges echoes the in-session dialogue and the dialogue with sources within the posts themselves. This voice has been filled with conversations and multiple voices at every turn. This reflect the complexity of what we’ve been discussing and models Friere’s dialogue where students and teachers become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.’ (1970, p.53)
Race
Hi Miriam
It was great read your Race blog.
Some of your comments have really helped me think in more depth or from different angles about the material we have been reading and how to use it.
It is a brilliant idea to use some of the SoN articles for activities, I hadn’t thought of using the material in that way, partly because I don’t deliver content in my current role – but I can definitely see the scope for it, and will bear it in mind in future if/when I do run workshops in the future.
Really liked your reflection on Hahn Tapper article on A Pedagogy of Social Justice etc .
How you were thinking in terms of ‘yourself’ in this situation, made me realise I was thinking about it from a point of view of my students, it being similar to the group work we ask our second years to do although in this instance they are self- selected groups.
There are lots of situations in education and life generally where a group situation is forced upon us. And in those situations, I would also look for personal connections over and above the collective identity too. I found it hard to think about this article as it seemed so abstract and as you say Macro in relation to SIT and in relation our roles which are much more zoomed in. The ‘Black people are not a monolith article’ was an interesting read too. I am not sure if this theory does support the monolith idea or if it is just that it was generalised. I would have liked to know what they actually did in the sessions. Maybe I need to go back to it and read more. It is hard to find examples of social pedagogy in action talked about in more detail.
Re Josephine Kwhali comments.
I found the Shirley Anne Tate lecture and the Josephine Kwhali film really interesting The language around systemic racism is so important and I guess chipping away at it from different angles. Found a quote today by Reni Eddo Lodge where she says ‘White Privilege is dull grinding complacency’. Complacency suggests not thinking, lack of rigor, self-satisfaction, carelessness, laziness, lack of awareness , not looking outside of an immediate situation. It’s starting to make me think about Hannah Arendt’s phrase ‘the Banality of evil’ when she was the reporter covering the ‘Eichmann trial’ and there is something similar about the entrenched not thinkingness of ’white privilege’ and the machine of systemic racism . I just looked up to see if anyone talks about the banality of evil in relation to racism and found this article, I will put the link here in case it is of interest.
https://ooakadiri.medium.com/racism-and-the-banality-of-evil-885aaf929c23
Re Retention and attainment in the disciplines of art and Design
Totally agree with your comment ‘ we need to talk about why we deliver as we do ‘
This is so true – I am realising that I need to be talking much more to the students about why we are doing what we are do. It like everything’s that’s happening needs to be articulated made more conscious.
One last thing I found your approach to the blog good to see – headings, highlighting quotes, inter -cut with your comments. As a beginner to this blog format I have struggled with the informal quickness that it is meant to have – I’m just not quite freed up enough yet!
Best
L
_______________________________________________________
Hi L!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.
I think your discussion around the nature of white privilege is really insightful. Use of words like ‘dull’, ‘grinding’ and ‘banality’ give a real sense of the passivity. It’s not about what you do but what you don’t do.
The article you linked to was a valuable elaboration on these ideas. The section where the author talks about Eichmann being a normal person ‘not vastly different from many people in the world today’ is helpful in understanding where to look for racism and why people fail to take responsibility for it. It isn’t monstruous, unusual, unique people who perpetuate evil or racism, it’s all of us. People who are nice and want to be on the side of right.
I agree with the author saying these ideas need to inform how we productively deal with racism. When confronting racist action, language or behaviour it is important that we don’t automatically condemn the people doing it. I’ve found this can be difficult in student situations where sometimes the people involved can want the other perpetrator to be vilified and called evil. However, again as the author says ‘I do not advocate for the removal of just consequences. I advocate for trial based on evidence, with the preferred consequences being a sustained change of attitude where possible.’
All the best,
Miriam
_______________________________________________________
Hi Miriam,
Every time I read someone else’s race blog, I discover more resources from the Shades of Noir website. This emphasises what an incredibly rich resource this is and how we can enhance our teaching and learning through engaging with the conversations, the journals, the artefacts and the other resources, such as directing our students to the safe space crits. So much to learn!
I too have borrowed Tyler Mitchell’s quote ‘black beauty is an act of justice’ for a session on fashion photography and social justice, which I would like to include in block 1 of year 1 fashion photography. Having lived in South Africa, I find it really sad that so many images in the media portray Africa in such a negative way, when life in Africa is so rich, creative and varied. I love seeing the way Tyler Mitchell, in his fashion photography, normalises the black experience – he writes that he is conveying black beauty as a regular part of daily life. This is so different to the the exoticisation of blackness prevalent in much fashion photography. I was so excited when the library finally got the book ‘The New Black Vanguard’, by Antwuan Sargent. Have you seen it? it is my favourite fashion photography book, and the first and only compilation of black fashion photographers I have found in the LCF library. Your list of black photographers and artists is fantastic by the way. I do not know the work of all of these photographers and am excited to discover them. One to add to your list is Jamal Nxedlana, from South Africa.
Thank you,
NP
____________________________________________________
Hi N!
I so much agree with what you say about Tyler Mitchell! I find his presentation of black experience radical and much needed. It works against prevalent dominant narratives of black lives as extreme and negative. It exemplifies – Black Joy – as resistance and for that reason I find it so moving!
I have not read the ‘The New Black Vanguard’ and I cannot wait to do so!
Thank you so much for this reference to Jamal Nxedlana too! Use of colour and texture is beautiful!
All the best,
Miriam
____________________________________________________
It was so insightful to read your thoughts and understand how you intend to directly translate ideas into the classroom. At the start you talk about counter narratives in image making, Tyler Mitchell being a fantastic example. I come from a background of independent publishing and so I thought I’d share two publishers I think are producing really interesting work. You may already know them, but Cassandra Press: https://www.cassandrapress.org/artist-zines which was co-founded by the artist Kandis Williams: https://www.instagram.com/kandis_williams/?hl=en and also black mass publishing: https://www.instagram.com/blackmasspublishing/?hl=en . You raise a valuable point about how, and where cultural knowledge should be shown, which raises important questions about the repatriation of stolen objects like the Benin Bronzes which Germany in April have announced they will return, unfortunately the British museum is yet to make the commitment. The Spark Journal has a fantastic article called “How Inclusive is object-based learning?” it makes some valuable points of how to guide and challenge classroom discussions around objects – https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/110 – Thanks again, reading about your approach has really helped me think about my own.
____________________________________________________
Hi Anna!
Thank you so much for your comments and references, so useful and relevant for my subject. Cassandra Press has an ideal mixture of exciting visual material, meaningful ideas and a diverse and vibrant community. Each one is a whole world!
The Spark Journal article is also so helpful! Its approach is very practical which I appreciate and works to push, expand and sharpen object-based learning in concrete and clear ways.
All the best,
Miriam
____________________________________________________
Hi Miriam,
It was so inspiring and powerful when you talked about how you would incorporate the SoN resources in your teaching and listing all the names and references. I agree with you that trainings are needed for part-time staff especially for the increasing amount of casualized worker. It was sad to read you saying that you find it difficult to address microagression when it’s made towards you by students. I can empathize with you on that as I have had similar experience. It makes me think that students should perhaps go through similar training to a degree, and that can also improve students of color experience. And your disagreement with SIT and how black identity is often seen as a monolith— I am very much with you. So many antiracist work in UAL that I have seen, they often focus on POC as a whole group and ignore the fact that everyone is a different individual! I have learnt a lot reading your blog— Thank you!
____________________________________________________
Hi Serena!
Thank you so much for your warmth and comments as always, it means a lot. It’s so important to know that none of us are alone and I totally agree with your training idea.
I think it’s so complex to acknowledge and encompass group and individual identities during teaching. But then at the same time, it’s also complex to balance them individually and in interpersonal relationships too!
Perhaps it’s like so many of the core aims of inclusion and social justice pedagogy, in that – it’s challenging because it’s challenging, So, finding it difficult means you’re on the right track?!
It reminds me of the way that disagreement within staff teams can actually be a good and healthy thing because it signals diversity. Uncomfortable can be good! – Let’s all get comfortable with discomfort!
All the best,
Miriam
____________________________________________________
Disability
Hi Miriam,
I really like the response to Christine Sun Kim’s video, and your innovative idea for the Granular Communication workshop. Also good to see that you are incentivised to proactively platform arts groups who specialise artists, whom are disabled POC. I think it’s vital that a collaboration such as this would remunerate this community, and that the group is platformed with the correct funding.
MC
____________________________________________________
Hi M!
Thank you so much for this!
You are so right that in highlighting the importance of financial and concrete remuneration being fed back into the community. Across art, design and culture, a recurring theme is the way that minority groups offer up creativity, innovation and unique expression only to have other people benefit from it and not receive proper credit. I’m thinking of things like Pat Boone covering Little Richard, the film ‘Paris is Burning’ using the lives of the gay community and the history of tap dance in America.
All the best,
Miriam